Inevitable
by The cursed child
Summary: When Ziva hears that Rivkin is on his way to kill Ari, she tries to stop it by going to her father. Eli traps her there for hours, until they get the call. Ari is dead, and she did nothing to stop it. Years later, she gets a call from Jenny Shepard, her best and only friend, that has her rushing to DC.


"They say Rivkin's on his way to DC to take him out."

Ziva slowly flattens herself against the wall. She is subtle enough that the officers in the hall don't suspect a thing. "Ari is a traitor, he deserves more than Michael's mercy bullet. His best friend won't make him suffer like he should."

Ziva listens until they finish the conversation. Her training allows her to be passive, to delay her reaction. Her heart rate is low, her breathing steady.

That stops the moment the subject changes from Ari's execution order to the upcoming mission in Brazil, of which she was supposed to be a part.

Her relaxed stance tenses and she storms all the way through buildings D, C and B until she arrives at A, where her father's office resides.

Ziva ignores the idiot behind the desk and slams the door open, finding her father gazing outside through the bulletproof glass. He stands there like he's untouchable, and she has long since given up on thinking he is anything but.

The director turns around and watches his daughter while he blindly inserts a code in the program in his computer. The room locks down. Mechanisms crunch and grind as the room is encased in steel from the inside.

The claustrophobic terror from her last imprisonment hasn't been forced away yet, and she panics. That, coupled with her angry heart rate and heavy breathing almost send her into shock.

She hears the older David talking, and focuses to distinguish the words. "Ari is a traitor to this agency, our country, and his family. I send Michael to America to take care of the problem."

Anger serves her well. It drives away the panic and sharpens her mind.

She spends a good ten minutes using every insult in every language she knows, damns her father and tries to slap him. Eli just watches her as the only child he has left screams her heart out. He wonders passively how long she has been bottling this up. Since Rivka left him? Around Amsterdam? When he was promoted to Director of Mossad?

It matters little.

Ziva, done with her lengthy dialogue, tries to find a way out, even though she know there isn't one. She helped design this office for her father, and only a concrete bunker without an access point is safer than this stupid box.

It is nine hours later that Michael calls with his report. Ari is dead, and Special Agent Kate Todd from NCIS has been rescued from her Hamas kidnappers and was driven home by her team leader.

Eli watches his daughter for a couple of seconds. She refuses to break down in front of him. She can do angry in front of him, but he has not seen her cry since Tali's dead many years ago. The man knows this will probably be the last time he sees his daughter. If he ever sees her again, she will be Officer David, and a part of him is glad for that. His last weakness will be gone. Another part mourns.

The chamber unlocks. Ziva disappears.

Years go by. As predicted, father and daughter don't speak outside of mission reports.

Ziva is better at what she does than ever. Her kills are quicker, her moves more elegant, her spying richer in information. She speaks two more languages, mastered a new martial art, took three separate crash courses in logistics, and has acquired new contacts in two dozen different countries.

While the Israeli is more controlled, she is also wilder, almost feral. Eli still remembers the day, three years after Ari's execution, that Officer Rivkin disappeared. Everyone knows he's dead. They all know who killed him too, but nobody crosses Ziva, and those who try to stop her never try a second time.

She is a loose cannon, but she is too good to actually get the same treatment as her half-brother. She has no agenda, but follows order to the bare minimum. She plays with her targets, puts herself in dangerous positions, and got captured on purpose once, though Mossad Officers can't figure out if it was a masochistic endeavor or a way of intelligence gathering.

It is not that strange that she asks for leave a month after Rivkin disappears. She buys a ticket to America and falls of the grid. Not that anyone really tries looking for her, they like living.

Tony DiNozzo is bored, very, very bored. Kate and Gibbs are in MTAC, while Probie is with Abby in her lab. He has not been invited to either, as the case involves La Grenouille. Ever since he got involved with Jeanne and got her killed, he has been benched whenever the arms dealer turns up.

Ziva walks into the Navy Yard with her visitor's pass on her jacket. She's just returned from Jordan, and only Jenny semi-911 had convinced her to just kill the guy and get it over with. She'd wanted the entire cell, but one kill was enough to end her mission.

The Mossad operative finds Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo at his desk. She knows everything there is to know about him and his team. She considered exterminating them all, in the days right after Ari was murdered, blamed them for discovering her brother's disloyalties.

But Gibbs' name had stopped her early on. She knew that name, had heard it every other day while she traveled with Jenny. The murder of his wife and daughter had interested her, and his life became a temporary obsession. She admired that he had taken revenge personally. Timed just right, in the right way, with no evidence, but anyone with half a brain knew he did it. He had unknowingly inspired Rivkin's demise.

She had kept her eye on the MCRT team and Jenny during her travels and missions. A quick look tells her that DiNozzo is the only one present, and she can't resist putting a womanizer in his place. So she stops by his desk.

"Can you tell me where I can find Director Shepard?" she asks seductively. Tony looks up from his tetris game and smirks back. He unashamedly checks her out from head to toe, and Ziva lets him.

"Who is asking?" he replies back. He wants to talk, starts a nice dialogue, and she just loves this game.

"Ziva," she politely replies, taking a seat on the edge of his desk, making sure she has her eyes on the elevator and stairs. Old habits die hard.

"Nice accent." She's surprised he noticed. The last time she was actually in Israel had been a year ago. She'd hoped that the accent had slipped away by now. "Israeli?" he questions. She nods.

The fitting piece of the puzzle clicks for her. She never understood why someone like Gibbs would keep DiNozzo around, but he is a better investigator off paper than on it. His eyes flick to her pass, but he asks for her last name anyway.

This is where she usually puts a womanizer in his place, so she says the first thing that comes to mind. "Haswari."

The agent's reaction is instantaneous. His knuckles clench and his teeth clamp together. But he knows that it's a lie, and recovers remarkably well. "Nice try, Miss David."

He grins, and she likes the fact that he pronounced her last name right on the first try.

"Officer David, actually." She watches as he turns his head to the side. He now knows that she has something to do Ari, and that she is in Intelligence.

"Mossad? Impressive, Officer David. Are you here for business or pleasure?"

That's one question she doesn't know the answer to, but she is saved by her friend. "Shalom, Ziva," she smiles. The smile is sad, and Ziva knows that something is very wrong.

Gibbs and Todd are behind the NCIS director. Gibbs looks exactly like his picture did when she first saw it three years has aged gracefully, might even look younger now, but still as professional.

"Boss, Kate. This is Ziva David, from Mossad, and a friend of our old pal Ari."

Twin looks of distrust are shot her way. These people hate her brother, but she does too, just a little. The nice thing here is that she doesn't need the trust of these people. They are unimportant, playthings while she is on vacation.

"Nice to meet you, Ziva," Agent Todd says with a smile. Ari talked about this woman once, and she wonders if her managed to seduce her.

Gibbs remains silent. He really is a functional mute, she thinks.

Jenny interrupts the introductions and takes her upstairs, but not before Ziva shoots a wink at Tony, who replies with a brilliant smile.

As soon as the door to Jenny's office closes she starts crying on Ziva's shoulder. Her best and only friend sobs her heart out in her presence, and Ziva has no idea what to do.

She has never been good with tears, hasn't cried since Ari's funeral, as she was the only one there anyway.

There is nothing she can do but wrap her arms around Jenny and wait until the woman starts controlling her breathing again. "I'm dying."

The revelation that her only friend in the world won't be there anymore is almost enough to make the Mossad assassin cry. She doesn't, but spends the rest of the week at her side. The detail are not all that important, so she doesn't pry.

Jenny is still obsessed with Benoit, that much hasn't changed, only this time, he is hunting her too. He blames his daughter's death on NCIS's shoulders, with good reason.

Ziva plays bodyguard when Jenny goes to the funeral of some guy named Decker. She laughs when Jenny tries to deceive her and run. The officer still forgets that Jenny doesn't hava her training. It's not hard to wiggle the story from the director, and it takes Ziva two contacts, three calls, and six hours before the Russian Svetlana lay dead at her feet.

Tagging along with Jenny means she sees a lot of team Gibbs. She flirts with Tony and coaxes Kate into a prank war with the boys. She gets head-slapped by Gibbs for the first time for that one, and she surprises herself by not breaking his arm, but smiling instead.

She accompanies McGee to one of his writer parties, inviting herself, as McGee is a little afraid of her. She has a lot of fun mingling with rich people without an agenda. It is refreshing to let her hair down, both literally and figuratively.

After that, McGee demands a rematch, but this time it's him and the Israeli against Kate and Tony. They lose this time. Those two are the perfect combination of intelligence and experience, but that doesn't mean it's anything but a close win.

Ziva tags along to crime scenes when Jenny is in meetings, and Gibbs feels compelled to teach her how to investigate. He still takes her guns every time, but she gets to keep her knife after a while.

Director David calls after three months to get her back to work, but she quits instead. Jenny hires her as a permanent body guard as a favor.

It's not like she needs the money or a job, but it's nice to be among these people. She feels some of the weariness and anger lift.

It's not always rainbows and sunshine. These people that she hesitantly calls friends solve murders, hunt people like her down. It's weird to be at the other end of the spectrum, but it feels good.

They don't mention Ari around her, even though most of them still don't know how important he was to her. She confided in Jenny of course, and surprisingly, in Kate as well.

Caitlin Todd was the one person in the team that she never thought she would get along with, but Kate was the first to trust her. They tease Tony together, gang up on McGee, cover for each other when Gibbs is close.

Kate introduced her to Abby, and the three of them go to metal concerts, try to plan days at the spa, and practice bowling on Thursdays.

Ziva never knew that she could do this many things. She helped Abby once with the volunteering work on Sunday, and since then spends those teaching self-defense when the team doesn't have a case and Jenny doesn't plan to leave the Navy Yard.

They invite her to Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year, making her a part of their little group permanently.

She kisses DiNozzo under the mistletoe, hugs Abby and Kate when they leave, kisses McGee on the cheek, and embraces Gibbs before she goes to sleep on his ridiculously comfortable couch, ignoring the fact that he helps Jenny up the stairs.

Before she falls asleep, she wonders if it is possible that another version of her, somewhere, could be any happier than she is now.


End file.
